Hear, my Son

My friend, Ralph Smith, has published several excellent books on the Trinity ( Paradox and Truth: Rethinking Van Til on the Trinity ; Eternal Covenant: How the Trinity Reshapes Covenant Theology ; and Trinity & Reality: An Introduction to the Christian Faith ), and most recently has written a superb monograph on Deuteronomy, Hear, My Son (available here: www.athanasiuspress.org/product/books/hear-my-son-examination-fatherhood-yahweh-deuteronomy). Ralph aims to show that this most “legal” of books is in fact instruction from Father Yahweh to Son Israel.

He makes his case first by examining a handful of explicit Father-son passages in Deuteronomy (1:31; 8:5; 14:1-2; 32:5-6, 18-20). More cleverly, he examines two sets of allusions that run through the entire book.

First, he finds some twenty allusions to the Fifth Word, specifically in the repeated promise that “it will be well” and and Israel will “live long in the land” if they obey the voice of Yahweh. Because these are promises attached to the Fifth Word, the repetition reinforces the fact that Yahweh is Israel’s father, whose instruction must be heard. Second, he uncovers a thread of allusions to the “rebellious son” law of Deuteronomy 21:18-21. Several times in Deuteronomy, and indeed throughout the Old Testament, Israel is the “stubborn” and “rebellious” son who “will not hear the voice of his father, or of his mother.” Deuteronomy is a book of instruction from a loving, faithful Father to his deaf, rebellious son.

As always, Ralph has Trinitarian interests here. In his books on the Trinity, he has argued that biblical covenant should be conceived of as fundamentally Father-Son rather than Master-servant relations; God’s relation to Adam is structured by the Father’s eternal relation to the Son in the Spirit. Ralph neatly reinforces the argument by using Deuteronomy. If the “suzereignty treaty” form that is supposed to provide the shape of Deuteronomy is infused with Father-son motifs, then we have good reason to conclude that the Father-Son relation is fundamental to all biblical covenants. As he puts it, “the covenant idea found in Scripture is grounded in the reality of the covenantal relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit. The Biblical covenant is not an Ancient Near Eastern convention; it is a description of how Father, Son, and Spirit relate to one another from all eternity and how the Triune God relates to His creation from the beginning until forever.”